In recent years, much attention has been paid to semiconductor memory devices with resistive memory elements such as resistive random access memories (ReRAMs), phase-change RAMs (PCRAMs), magnetic RAMs or magnetoresistive RAMs (MRAMs), and fuse/anti-fuse RAMs, as candidates for next-generation successors to flash memories that are large-capacity and inexpensive nonvolatile semiconductor memory devices. Much effort has thus been made to develop these memories (see, for example, Jpn. Pat. Appln. KOKAI Publication No. 2008-276904).
For the above-described memories, for example, ReRAMs, a method has been proposed in which control such as data write or data erase is performed on a mass of a plurality of bits. However, the conventional configurations of the above-described memories and the conventional control method may provide low reliability.